Spiritual Realities — George Verwer

And sharing with you here in Kendall. I think I've been now living in Britain about 25 years. That includes quite a bit of time in India and other places. But unless someone has a better memory than I do, which is not unusual, I believe this is my first time here in Kendall.

I wasn't sure I was going to get here really because we were over in the Whitehaven area and I looked on this little map and I thought, well, this road goes more direct than this one around the coast.

So we started on this road over the mountain and it seems that everybody today decided to go on that road, but there's only room for one at a time. And at the top of that pass was the most massive traffic jam with people panicking and we thought we were going to be sitting up there for quite a while, but somehow the Lord brought us down from the mountain to be with you in the meeting.

We have set up a very special book display and before we read from the book of books, and no Christian book compares with the Bible, books are just sermons in print taken from the Bible, I'd like to just mention some of these books with the hope that after the meeting you'll take a few minutes.

Not only books, but audio tapes, music tapes, videotapes, brand-new Rolls-Royce missionary map of the world, all kinds of items are there. Let me mention first of all the new edition of Operation World.

We've been waiting for a couple of years, 500 pages of information on what's happening around the world politically, spiritually, prayer requests, maps. You'd expect to pay 10 pounds for a book like this today, 500 pages, but till Christmas it's 3 pound 95.

Already the first huge edition in our warehouse as we published it is almost out of stock and we believe God is going to use this book to promote world missions and we have this new map of the world that you can get with it, presenting great challenge of world evangelism.

Every time you purchase any book from our little book exhibition, you receive in magazine book free. These books originally sold for one and two pounds, but by putting them in magazine form, especially this is for Africa and Asia, we always just keep a few back in Britain, you can get them free.

This is Gems from Tozer, this is one of my earlier books, Come Live Die, but there are many other books there. We especially have been stressing the writings of Oswald Saunders and Ralph Shallis, two great men of God.

This is his book on spiritual leadership, reprinted again. Anyone with any kind of responsibility in the church and I think even in the home needs to read what this dear old saint has to say about leadership.

This book is now in many, many languages, you'll need to read it in English and I recommend that. If you only get one book, perhaps you should get that one. Ralph Shallis is now with the Lord, one of the greatest British missionaries of this generation.

His French was so good that he wrote in French and had to be translated back into English. This is one of his books from now on, a book on spiritual growth, a down-to-earth book, that it's not easy to grow strong in Jesus Christ and Satan will resist you every inch of the way.

This is a brilliant book on spiritual growth that we want to encourage you to get. Healing for Damaged Emotions. So many people who come into our work now, a couple thousand every year, have damaged emotion from their background.

Unbelievable things. I'd even like to mention some of them in public, but God has been using this book. You may not agree with everything in it. Written by a great, great Bible teacher. He's not a psychiatrist, a Bible teacher.

Basic biblical principles that can help us find strength when we're under emotional pressure and we're finding that bitterness doesn't just disappear and that worry and inferiority, anxiety doesn't always easily go.

Finally published in its British edition, one pound cheaper than it was before. Healing for Damaged Emotions by David Seamans. Well, as you can imagine, there are many other books. Here's one by Peter Maiden.

I think most of you know him. What you may not know is that from his little stronghold in Carlisle, he in fact is the Associate International Director of Operation Mobilization. And he has written this book called Take My Silver.

I originally phoned him up and said, I'm opposed to you producing this book. In O .M., people are going to think we're hinting for money. In O .M., you know we believe in just looking to God. But anyway, he won and someone else published it apart from O .M.

And I think it really is a great book. And if you buy my book, No Turning Back, lovely pictures of some mountains there, mainly messages I've given over the past years, you can have Peter Maiden's book free.

Not sure if that's possible, but I hope we have enough copies. My Big Father, a book about Turkey. Again, God may have brought me here this evening just to tell you about these books, because this is not a well-known book.

And it's a book that you will want to read. One of the first persons ever to come to Christ in our church planting ministry in Turkey was Brother Canaan. He is now with the Lord. But again, through this book about his life, the message goes.

There's also a lot of cassette tapes being offered at a special price by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, by Alan Redpath, and some music tapes by Keith Green and others. And I hope that at least, if you don't buy anything, you'll pick up this little newspaper about the ministry of O .M.

I'm not here to say that much about O .M., though no one said I couldn't. That's not really the first burden on my heart tonight. But we need new people who will pray. You know, every week, approximately, one of our prayer partners goes to be with the Lord.

And we need new people who will stand in the gap and pray as we move forward in the communist world, the Muslim world, the Hindu world, Africa, South America, and throughout Europe. I guess just about the whole world now.

In fact, I noticed the ship Lagos is just in its 95th country. And we're so excited about what God wants to do in the next 12 months. If you want more regular information about O .M., you can fill out that coupon and send it into our British office located now near Oswald Street.

The Call to Hear and Do God's Word

Let's turn now in our Bibles, if we could please, to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. As I've been spending most of today praying and answering letters while at the same time looking at the beautiful Cumbrian mountains in the Lake District, I've just been reminded, as I'm sure you have so many times, of the greatness of God.

And as I saw that traffic jam on that pass, I was reminded again of the folly of man. God is great. And God is wanting us to respond to His voice. I think of those words in James. I climbed two mountains very early this morning, listening to the Word of God as I was climbing on my little cassette recorder.

It makes climbing even more interesting these days, to go to the top of a mountain listening to the book of Hebrews. And then we got into the book of James, and I remember those words. Let's not be hearers of the Word only, but doers.

Doers. And this is what I long for as I share with you this evening. Romans 12. After those great 11 theological chapters of Romans, we have these words. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. And ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, realistically, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ. Every one member, one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.

Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministry. For he that teacheth on teaching, he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with liberality.

He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy, hate that which is evil, and cling to that which is good. And be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another.

Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing diligently in prayer. Distributing to the necessity of saints, giving to hospitality.

Bless them who persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. And be of the same mind one toward another, and mind not high things, but come down, come to send to men of low estate.

And be not wise in your own conceit. We just pray for a moment. Father, we thank you for your word. We acknowledge that we are here to receive a message from your word. For our own situation at this particular time.

Lord, as we're here, our hearts go out to Salvador, where that earthquake has suddenly thrust hundreds of people out into eternity. Our hearts go out to Reykjavik, in Iceland, where these two leaders of the superpowers meet together and discuss the destiny of planet Earth.

Father, we know the hearts of kings and presidents, prime ministers in your hand. We believe, O God, that we are here tonight in your purposes and in your will. We would ask that we would not just be hearers, but doers of the word.

World Missions and the Dirty Hands Project

For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. To just emphasize, if at all possible, the challenge of this Dirty Hands project. The people organizing this, and we're in the middle of it, have taken a very big step of faith to arrange the venue in a huge auditorium in Carlisle.

I'm not sure if it's even listed on this leaflet. Maybe they... Yes, there it is, Sands Center, Carlisle. I just saw this place the other day. I think there's room in there for thousands, for more people.

And I can just say that this is a very, very high quality, outstanding program. It won't be a shame to invite any young person to, who wants something perhaps a little different, a little unusual, in terms of methods of communication, multimedia presentation.

And it's going to take a lot of prayer to really see this accomplish what we would like it to accomplish. There's an enormous need for emphasizing world missions in Britain today, when many, many people have become more introspective, and considering the situation in the nation, people feel, how can we look beyond the shores of Britain?

But you know, for our mandate, we must look to God's Word. Not to the political scene, or to the political conventions, which are now finished. But we must look to the Word of God. And we still have this command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.

David Pope, some of the others who are involved in this ministry, have been out in India and have seen the need. They were out, somewhat in conjunction with our work in India. And this series of meetings, all over the nation, are linked with what God has been doing in their own hearts.

And Ian Coffey is an outstanding brother, I've met with him, and I hope that you'll go. You know, sometimes when they have these big events, and they only have them in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, people in small places, I'm sure you never complain here, but people in small places say, hey, what about us?

Why don't we get some of these big events? But you know, sometimes when the big events come, and we know that God can be in small events as well as big events, the people don't really get their hands dirty and bring along the people who need to hear this challenge.

A Testimony of Conversion and Spiritual Reality

So I just thought I would add that. And we would appreciate any help you can give in trying to get some people to come along on that important evening. When I come to a town for the first time, I like to begin by just sharing a little of my own testimony.

I would like you to turn back to Romans chapter 12, one of the most important passages of Scripture in my own thinking. I think it's so exciting that God is real. God answers prayer. Many, many years ago, this little book was published called Come Live, Die, Now You Can Get It Free, which was based on a message I gave at a large student convention of some 9 ,000 students on the subject of reality.

In fact, the initial, original title was called Hunger for Reality. And in a sense, this is always my burden when I come to share with God's people reality, that we may really know God, that we may be able to express our faith to others in a realistic way and in a way that makes an impact, that we would know reality in prayer, reality in relationships, reality in feeding upon God's Word, reality in dealing with problems, reality in dealing with the hard things in life.

In my own situation, I wasn't a Christian as a younger teenager. My parents weren't Christians. My grandfather came from the Netherlands, a little country across the water. He was an atheist. My other grandfather came from Glasgow.

He was a drunkard, and that marriage broke into two pieces, much to the dismay of many people. I didn't know what the Gospel was. I never went, as a very young person, to a meeting ever, like this meeting tonight, where God's Word was exalted.

I had got involved in a church, but this church was more like a social club. It was like a political organization. In fact, the pastor when I was there was more or less a Marxist. I became active in this church, president of the young people's group, because I thought I could bring life to the church by teaching the young people how to dance, which I did.

I got a jukebox, a record player in the church, and went at it. As you can guess, my father immigrated from the Netherlands. My accent, I'm sure, betrays me, though I've lived in this country now 25 years, trying to learn the language.

It's difficult. Every part of the country, they speak it in a different way. But my father was an immigrant from the Netherlands, over to near New York City, and he wanted a good life, and worked very, very hard to give me everything that, supposedly, I would need.

So that by 16, I had three businesses. I was happy, outwardly speaking, the New York nightclubs, the fun, and all the rest, especially women and sports. But into my life, in God's providence, came a praying, elderly woman.

She wasn't really old then, but when I was 17, anything over 30 looked like an antique. So she started praying for me, and she sent me a Gospel of John through the post. Somehow, even through pride, though, I think I was seeking God.

And my father was also beginning to seek God. Initially, he just sent me to Sunday school, and he stayed and worked in the garden. But then he started to go, unfortunately, to the same church. So even though he didn't know Jesus Christ, he became an elder in the church.

And we were both seeking, in many ways. And this woman sent me this Gospel, and put me on her hit list, her prayer list, and prayed that I would not only be saved, but that I would be sent out as a missionary to reach millions of people with the Word of God.

That's quite a wild prayer to pray, for a young teenager who was in trouble with the police, and who had no signs of getting involved in mission. Then Billy Graham came to New York City. We have some of his books, by the way, on our book table.

In fact, the Billy Graham books on the table are available for any donation, because we got them on a special basis. But Billy Graham came to New York City for one night. I think he had just come back from Scotland.

And I went to hear him speak, and I heard something I'd never heard before. I heard the need for conversion. I heard the need for new life. I heard the need to repent of sin, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, if you have been reared in a Bible-believing church or assembly, of course, this is old news for you. Many of the young people that I counsel are bored with hearing this same old Gospel. It's hard to face that fact.

And you know, often it's much more difficult for a second-generation Christian. I know from my three children, who have gone now through the teenage years, and are grown up, to be reared when you're fed Bible verses from age two, and then to somehow, later in life, become excited about Jesus Christ.

I thank God that over half the people in O .M. are young people reared in Christian homes. The other half of us, we just were grabbed from the pit. I came back from that meeting a new person in Jesus Christ.

I accepted Him, received Him, believed on Him. Use whatever terminology you want. Let's not fight so much over terminology. We need more reality and less vocabulary. But something happened in my heart in that meeting.

And I went back to this ungodly school, high school, where sometimes a third of all the students were drunk. And I just began to share Jesus Christ. And I twisted the headmaster's arm, because I'd become president of the student union, to let us have a Gospel of John distribution campaign in the high school.

He couldn't believe his ears. And we got a thousand students to promise to read God's Word in that school. And God's Spirit began moving in an unusual way. You know, that lady had prayed for that one school for over fifteen years.

Have you prayed for anything persevering for fifteen years? Don't give up. I find a lot of people give up when they're praying. But you know, we need to understand God's timing, God's providence, God's sovereignty.

And not give up. And so she kept praying, and she kept working. And she kept loving. She's 80 pushing 90 now, and she's still going at it. She writes to me regularly. And you know, when you have prayer partners like that woman standing with you, I tell you, the devil gets mighty scared.

And sometimes he doesn't even bother to attack you on some issues. So God worked in that school, and one meeting where I shared about 125 made a profession of faith in Christ. Not all of them were converted.

Then when Billy Graham came back for a crusade two years later, because I was converted in a one-night meeting, we hired buses from this particular church parking lot into New York City, and many, many more came to Christ.

My own father made a profession of faith in one of my meetings. And then it was sort of sealed when he was working as a steward in the Billy Graham campaign. In God's providence, I went off to a very unusual college after high school.

And as I went to this college, I was a babe in Christ, just so hungry to grow and to know God's Word that I didn't know many Christians. And when I got to this college, I was warned. It was a very sleepy Presbyterian school in the southern part of America.

I was warned about this fanatic, Dale Roton, who was baptizing people in the showers. Some of you may have read some of Dale's books. We've been together now in this work, because through all of these things in high school and in college, Operation Mobilization was born.

Though it never took on any real growth factor until it came to Britain in 1962, because we didn't even have the name in those early days, Operation Mobilization. We didn't even know what God was doing.

But God united Dale and I together, and we ended up the next summer going to Mexico. And our goal was to put into practice what we were reading about in the Word of God. This was always our great goal, together with reaching people for Christ, which we were already doing in the cities and towns and jails and places around where we were studying.

Operation Mobilization and the Missionary Call

Together with evangelizing, we wanted to put into practice the New Testament principles, perhaps because I was a doubting Thomas. In fact, when I studied liberal theology and philosophy and psychology, I was so filled with doubts, I just wondered, you know, is Christianity really true?

This may sound strange to you, but in this one college, 50 of the young people who came in believing the Bible overthrew the Christian faith. 50%. And many of them were ministerial students. That was back in the late 50s.

And the evangelical cause, the Bible-believing cause, is a far greater strength now. I think we have different problems now. We have people, you know, saying that they believe the Bible, but not really experiencing the authority of the Word of God in their lives, in their marriages, in their homes.

And I can remember praying to God many, many times, Lord, if what I read here in your Word, Jesus, the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by Him. I was always a very sensitive person, ever since childhood.

Seeing my first beggar was an overwhelming experience. Seeing my drunken grandfather just about finished me. I wanted to help the poor. I couldn't understand why I had so much, even though, I guess, we didn't have that much.

And others had so little. And when I went to Mexico and I saw people living in what we call in America garbage dumps, a rubbish tip, eating what was thrown away by other people, I just was overwhelmed.

In fact, I walked away into the sunset that night. I can remember it as if it were not so long ago. Though, in fact, it was 29 years ago, almost 30 years ago. Walking into the sunset of that rubbish tip in Monterrey, Mexico, and making a further commitment of my life to Jesus Christ.

I transferred out of that particular college to Moody Bible Institute in order to take a missionary course and to head out while I thought the communist world. To make a long story short, I launched my first major effort into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1961.

And due to my own stupidity, was arrested by the Soviet secret police and accused of being a CIA agent in the Soviet Union. They gave me a submachine gun escort back to Austria after deciding I was just a religious fanatic.

And I went for a day of prayer. And during that day of prayer, I was actually singing and praising God on the top of a tree, one of the few places I can sing without really bothering a lot of people. Two words came to my mind, operation, mobilization, and a vision.

Not a dream, but a vision in my own mind of seeing Europeans reach Europe. It seemed a bit silly to bring Americans all the way across the Atlantic, where their weakness in learning language, where their weakness in identifying to European culture, when there were so many people right in Europe who knew Jesus, and many of them knew languages.

That's what led me to eventually leave Spain, where I was living, and just about learned Spanish when the Lord told me to leave and give the work over to nationals, which has always been our policy, to train nationals to be leaders of the church in their own nation.

So in February of 1962, to my own amazement, God led me to Great Britain. Four months later, 90 British people, hardly knowing what they were doing, joined Operation Mobilization, including a young, dynamic man from Carlisle named Keith Beckwith, who was destined a few years later to give his life in service for Jesus Christ in Poland.

I was just with his father a few days ago in Carlisle. Always a mystery why young lives are often just suddenly taken. But God was planting a work here in the British Isles, which was not to be a one-year, two-year, fly-by-night program, but which was destined to become one of the major missionary efforts in the history of British Christianity.

And I guess some people had to give their lives for that to become a reality. By the next summer, 900 British young people joined OM, and soon the work spread through all of Europe, the Middle East, and on out to India, where British people still, back in the early 70s and late 60s, had a tremendous open door.

It was in these journeys out to India that seed thoughts for getting a ship came to the minds of a few of us in a converted pub in Bolton, Lancashire. I presented the leaders of OM with this burden God gave me, to have an ocean-going ship for world evangelism.

That ship has been sailing for 17 years, has reached 50 million people with the Word of God, has seen tens of thousands profess faith in Christ or return to faith in Jesus Christ, and is now in its 95th nation.

30, no, it's now 40 ,000 men and women have had at least some kind of training on OM and are now working with mission societies and churches in almost every single nation in the world. These young people, when on OM, face-to-face have given the Word of God to over 400 million people.

Persevered, sending the Word of God through the post to that person. And God, in a sense, did the rest. It's called Operation Multiplication. You can read about it in every page of the Book of Acts. As I've walked with God these 32 or 33 years, I have again and again been overwhelmed.

And I guess that's why in many ways, reality, the word reality, is still one of my favorite words. I have a long way to go in my Christian life. I battle discouragement every week. I fail the Savior. But I know He is my refuge by God's grace, according to His Word, to be intimidated by my mistakes and my failures, by my weaknesses, but in fact, use them as stepping stones to go forward in my Christian life.

Scripture Memory and Seriousness in Christian Life

One of the things I began to do when I was a young Christian was to read the Word of God, as Ralph Chalice urges us to do in this brilliant book, but then also to memorize Scripture. How many of you memorize Scripture, even one verse a week, even one verse a month?

I like to be big-hearted. I used to be so narrow. I'd make people all feel so guilty. So now I'm, you know, much easier to live with. That's what some people have told me. Anyway, how many have memorized Scripture, even one verse a month?

Raise your hand. Encourage my heart. Prove to me it's different here than London. Seven hands. Well, eight. Hmm. Well, you're the same as people all over the country. I don't know why people don't memorize Scripture.

The psalmist said, I have hid thy word in my heart that I may not sin against you. Today you can even get the Word of God on tape. You can listen to men reading the Word of God as you're doing something else.

We have so many advantages today to get into the Word of God. Yet because of the pressure on our times, because of television, because of other good things oftentimes, because the good is often the enemy of the best, today the Bible is neglected by God's people.

I don't believe it's enough to go to special meetings. I don't believe it's enough to even sit at the feet of the greatest Bible teachers in Britain. I believe as Christians, if we want to have ongoing reality in our lives, we need to know how to feed upon the Word of God.

If you're meditating intensively upon God's Word without necessarily memorizing it, that's fine with me. But many people aren't. I found, speaking in Christian unions all over the nation, that many Christian students have never read the Bible through even once.

I won't take that survey. One depressing survey is enough in any one evening. But it's amazing how many people have never read the Bible through once. There's a word that rings in my mind tonight together with the word reality, and it's the word seriousness.

Seriousness, Holiness, and Christian Witness

When I got to the top of one of the mountains this morning, I switched off the Bible reading and turned on the news, and I got the reports on the Tory political convention. I don't know what you think of politics.

I don't know whether you're Tory or Labour or Liberal or whatever. But I can tell you some of these people, not all of them, some of these people, and I follow politics, are incredibly serious about what they're doing.

I happen to be an immigrant. I happen to also be an admirer of your Prime Minister. I'm sure not all of you are in that camp. But I'll tell you whether you like her politics or not, you have watched these last few years a woman who is committed to what she is doing and makes a fool out of many Christians, including missionaries.

Forgive me for getting strong. But I will tell you, in the church today, we so lack seriousness of purpose. We so lack people who will put their hands on the plow and not turn back. There's not one out of fifty Christian young people today who is serious about the things of God.

It's a great big sort of religious game in which once or twice a week we're a little bit semi-serious, especially around the Lord's table, but the rest of the time, really, there isn't much. When it comes to making an impact for God, when it comes to winning people to Christ, when it comes to the huge task of world missions that God has given us, when it comes to stewardship and giving of our money for world evangelism, when it comes to even the smallest tasks that need to be done that the church may function properly, often it's a few people who are doing all the work.

I don't know if you've ever read the writings of A .W. Tozer. You can get one of his bookazines free of charge at the end of the meeting. But Tozer said if any secular company needed as much raw material as the Christian church to get so little finished product, it would go bankrupt in six months.

And you and I know that. Some of you are businessmen, some of you are farmers. If you ran your business, if you ran your farm, like we are running the church in terms of the total task of world missions, you would be out of business.

And my plea tonight in this one feeble visit, perhaps in my lifetime to your town, is that you may take the word of God in dead seriousness. That you may take passages like the scripture we read tonight, which would take us a week to expound, Romans 12, and decide this is the way you are going to live.

Whatever it costs, and it will cost. It'll cost you some of that television time. It'll cost you some of that gardening time. It'll cost you some of that other time that may go at present to good things, but is robbing you of the best.

Many Christians today do not witness to anybody about their faith. They don't talk about Jesus to anyone. I'm not asking you to become some militant, aggressive, o-emer moving down the streets of Preston or Manchester with the word of God.

I'm only asking that somehow you would take some steps of faith in earnest to be his witness, because that's what the word of God commands us in a dozen different places. Jesus in Acts 1 .8 says, You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth.

It's not just some of the people in the political realm who today are so dead serious about what they're doing. We see salesmen very serious about their product. We see sportsmen willing to train and buffet their body for two or three years.

We see people in many walks of life that seem to be far more committed to what they are doing, even opening a McDonald's in Kendall. That every man in the world may eventually have a hamburger, the goal that this tiny little corporation set years ago, which is now one of the largest companies in the entire world, started by one man who bought one little stand and decided the whole world was going to feel the impact.

And it almost is. If it can get as far as Kendall, believe me, they are moving into the regions beyond. Not really serious about that, of course. Amazing business people, sportsmen, political people, staying up late hours, sacrificing their money, risking their lives.

Like the day Margaret Thatcher got on the plane after she was almost blown to death in Brighton and was headed out to New Delhi, of all places to go, where Indira Gandhi had just been assassinated. All these heads of state literally walked ready to be assassinated.

One of these little pittsquake reporters tried to get a few words. They're always trying to intimidate people. You know, aren't you afraid or aren't you worried? And she just said something very quick like, you know, this is just something we learn to live with.

And she got on the plane to go to a funeral. Tried to kill Indira Gandhi's son as well. What a world we live in. Do you love righteousness, my friends? When's the last time you were ever angry for unrighteousness?

Awakening to the Lost, Needy, and Oppressed

Do people being raped and murdered all around you stir you to do anything? We had another little lady in Crystal Palace just a few days ago, 75 years of age, raped and robbed on the doorstep of the vicarage.

Or inside the door, it started on the door. And not far from here, a friend of mine, north of here, wrote me about her friend who was just raped and murdered. And some people sit back as if there's nothing we can do about it.

Abortion, slaughtering thousands and thousands of children. Injustice on every side. Wickedness, evil, there's so much to do. Even if you didn't believe in world evangelism, it seems to me you could get serious about life.

Serving, helping, loving, giving to others. And yet so often, God's people are indifferent. Somebody referred to them as being God's frozen people instead of God's chosen people. Which is it, really? And of course, if someone does happen to come along and share a strong message, you can be sure we'll engage in operation excuses.